Sponge Bob Square Pants Effect on Children

Introduction

Have you ever thought about how much time our kids spend watching SpongeBob? When you think about it, the number is a tad bit scary. That being said, this paper outlines SpongeBobr's massive impact on kids in elementary schools, and the effects that this has on children. It is hoped that the results and the conclusions here will assist in finding the most appropriate solutions that are socially desirable. Since SpongeBob aired on the television screen, there has been a rapid growth in viewership among children below the age of 4 years instead of the realities in which the children live. Elementary school Kids seem to feel entertained by the SpongeBob program. Because of its fast pace, it can be assumed that the SpongeBob cartoon program does not entirely fit into the genre of such young children on the grounds of their capabilities, realities in which the children live.

Therefore this research considers that SpongeBob had a dissembled relationship with young kids as it constructs a different worldview as well as creating perceptions that are beyond their mental capabilities. II. Research Methods The research will utilize the casual observation and focus groups discussions on verifying the data collected. I. Casual Observation This is a tool that would be used to provide the actual behavior of every participant. Observation and group observation would require the experimenter to put into context the behavior and thus understand it much better (Anderson et al.,1986) Observations were made will be made on the actual patterns of behavior. This research will observe the behavior of the focus group while watching the cartoon and immediately after taking the tests (Blair,& Razza,2007).

Research Design

I will be carrying out critical research. The nature of the study will be quantitative. A total of 35 4-6-year-old kids were selected from a list of families that have agreed to take part in the study. Most of the kids that participated were from medium to upper-middle households. First, we will seek permission from the parents through telephone and explain to them about the objective of the study. Later we shall make an appointment with willing parents to come of the laboratory, where the study will be mentioned to them again. Finally, parents will have to sign a form approving the study to proceed. The primary objective of this investigation is to study whether fast-paced SpongeBob Square pants directly influence the executive functioning of preschool-aged children. Children will randomly be assigned the fast-paced SpongeBob Square Pants, educational program or drawing. The viewers of the cartoon will watch a truncated episode of the program. Free Drawing using markers will be the control condition.

Method

The entire study population of kids between the age of 4-6 years would be far too high to include in the study. Therefore, it would be essential to draw the most appropriate population to be sampled. This research will use a non-probability design. This method purposely targets a group of children that are believed to be reliable for the study. The study will also employ judgmental sampling by selecting kids between the ages of 4-6 years of from a database. This is because children attending a single school would enable the study to access both terrestrial programs. This implies that the selected children are constantly exposed to televisions and watch cartoons and can speak English fluently (Choma, 2005)

Data Collection Procedere and Analysis

The experiments will be carried out with every child in a small room within the laboratory. 10-minutes clips of SpongeBob Square pants and an education program will be played on a television. While these tests are being conducted, parents will be completing a media questionnaire on which they would indicate the period the child spent watching TV every week. Next children will be given HTKS test which the experiment tells the participants when I tell you to touch your ears, you will hold your fingers, but when I tell you to point your finger, I want you to hold your head. After a short orientation, ten trial pieces will be provided to every kid. Every kid gets 2 points for every correct response and one point for every wrong response. If a child received all the 10 points, a shoulder-knee test would be added and an addition of 10 points. If a child receives at least 14 additional points of the second part of the pasty m they went to the third stage. This is where the rules were switched. For instance when I tell you to touch your head, I want you to touch shoulders.

After completing the HTKS test, participants will complete a rate-of-gratification test. First, they will be showed a basket full of small snacks and another bag containing Goldfish snacks and requested to choose the one they would prefer as a snack. This experiment will put ten pieces of the selected goodies on one bowl and two pieces on another and place a buzzer between the two bowls. The participant will be instructed that they could eat the 10 bits if they waited for the analyst to get back, or they could hit the buzzer every moment they wanted the analyst to get back straightaway, in which they possibly will only get two pieces. The attention related items in this study will be: being restless, overactive, and fidgeting, being distracted easily, concentration wanders seeing the task through to the end, the good span of attention and thinking before taking any action (Levine,& Waite,2000).

We shall look up the relevant online sites for international secondary data. The sites used will be listed in the references. In analyzing the data collected, the first step will be coding. This would ensure proper preparation of a codebook, which would define the meaning of the various question provided to each variable. The codebook will be the guide during the analysis stage of the research in analyzing the data. The first step will be qualitative processing (Anderson, Craig, 2004). Therefore, it is essential to have the code book which defines the meaning of the assigned questions.

Findings

The study offers empirical evidence that watching 10 minute episode of the past pace cartoon would immediately damage the executive function of the children relative to watching the education programs of drawing. Children in the fast-paced television are expected to perform much worse than expected despite all of them being attentive at the outset (Gerbner et al.1996). The findings of this results are consistent with others that have shown negative implication of watching SpongeBob on the overall attention of the children. Given the popularity of the program among kids, it is vital for parents always to stay attentive to the likelihood of declining executive functionality on their children (Ahammer, & Murray1979). On matters concerning pacing, we expect that the offensive of fast-pacing events that were present in the cartoon program might further exacerbate executive functionality. While standard procedures are decoded by established neural circuitry, there is usually no space for new or uncertain events, in which fast-pacing events are part. Programming fantastical events can probably decline the cognitive processes are there is the constant engagement of the orienting responses to such a novel function.

Due to the depletion of cognitive capabilities, we can conclude that the fast pacing aspect of the cartoon is fully accountable for EF impacts (Bryant,1994). This will be further studies in other studies. Kids usually watch a lot of cartoon programs. This has long been associated with problems in maintaining attention for a long time ” however, the limited research on the impact of such fast-paced cartoons on EF. Furthermore, this study seeks to find out whether viewing Spongebob Squarepants would impair the Executive functionality of 4-6-year-old kids, an outcome about which close relative of young kids should better understand. It is understandable that parents are the busiest today than ever before and as a result children usually spend most of their time alone and spend most of their time watching television programs. However, this being busy does not mean limiting screen time including movies and video games. Therefore, parents should offer their kids with alternative ways of spending their free time as well as entertainment rather than just watching television.

References

1. Anderson, Craig. Ph.D. (2004) Violent Programming and its Impact on Children. IOWA State University of Science and Technology
2. Anderson, D. R., Lorch, E. P, Field, D. E., Collins, P, & Nathan, J. G. (1986) Television viewing at home: Age trends in visual attention and time with TV Child Development, 57,1024-1033.
3. Ahammer, I. M., & Murray J. P. (1979) Kindness in the kindergarten: The relative influence of role-playing and prosocial television in facilitating altruism. International Journal of Behavioural Development, 2,133-157.
4. Blair, C., & Razza, R. P. (2007). Relating effortful control, executive function, and false belief understanding to emerging math and literacy ability in kindergarten. Child development, 78(2), 647-663. Bryant, Jennings, Dolf Zillman, ed. (1994}. Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research.
5. Choma. C.J. (2005) Effects of cartoons on children, quoted in Ward S. and Wackman D. advertising and infra family influence; purchase influence attempts and parental yielding. IV 516-25.
6. Gerbner, et al. (1996) Invisible Crisis: What Conglomerate Control of Media Means for America and the World Boulder: Westview Press.
7. Levine, L. E., & Waite, B. M. (2000). Television viewing and attentional abilities in fourth and fifth-grade children. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 21(6), 667-679.

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